Cemeteries

Note: any church within an urban environment may have had its
graveyard closed after the Burial Act of 1853. Any new church built
after that is unlikely to have had a graveyard at all.

Church History

This Place of Worship was founded before 1272, and we understand it is still open.

Kelly's Directory of 1923 describes Preston-on-Stour as a village and parish on the Warwickshire border, on the west bank of the river Stour, and 3 miles south-east from Milcote station on the Honeybourne and Stratford branch of the Great Western railway; 3½ miles south from Stratford on Avon and 36 north-east from Gloucester. The church of St Mary is "a plain building of stone, consisting of chancel, nave and an embattled western tower, with pinnacles, containing 3 bells". The chancel was restored by James Roberts-West esq. in 1904.

There is a fine monument to the Kemp family, 1624, and several to the West family, including one to James Roberts-West esq. 1882, and others to William Mariett, 1719, and John Mariett, 1709. There are four stained windows, including the east window, presented by James West in 1754. In 1885 about a quarter of an acre of ground was given by James Roberts-West esq. as an addition to the churchyard, the old portion of which is closed. The parish records date from 1540.

The living was then a vicarage, united in 1917 with the living of Whitchurch, in the gift of Capt. H.C.J. Alston-Roberts-West R.N. and had been held since 1922 by the Rev. Dudley Westerman Lee M.A. of St Catherine's College, Cambridge, who lived at Whitchurch Rectory. Alscot Park House, "a noble Gothic structure in a well-wooded deer park of 200 acres" was then the seat of the aforementioned Capt. Alston-Roberts-West, who was also lord of the manor, and principal landowner.

Perhaps not surprisingly, Preston on Stour is now in Warwickshire. It was transferred from Gloucestershire in 1931, and now belongs to the Deanery of Shipston [on Stour]. See also
Preston on Stour Village website.

Note: Whitchurch may be considered a "lost village", as it was cleared for sheep farming in the 16th century but its church of St Mary has survived. There are photographs showing that it
Stands Alone on the Geograph website.

Denomination

Now or formerly Church of England.

If more than one congregation has worshipped here,
or its congregation has united with others, in most cases this
will record its original dedication.

Maps

This Church is located at OS grid reference SP2033849929. You can see this on various mapping systems. Note all links open in a new window:

www.magic.gov.uk (Modern Maps with various overlays)
Zoom out to 1:100000 to see County boundaries, and 1:500000 to show Parish Boundaries.

Reference

Places recorded by the Registrar
General under the provisions of the Places of Worship
Registration Act 1855 (2010) is available as a
"Freedom of Information" document from the website
What Do They Know.

You can specify either a Place, or OS Grid Reference to
search for. When you specify a Place, only entries for that place
will be returned, with Places of Worship listed in alphabetical
order. If you specify a Grid Reference, Places of Worship in the
immediate vicinity will be listed, in order of distance from the Grid
Reference supplied. The default is to list 10, but you can specify
How Many you want to see, up to a maximum of 100.

You can further refine your search by supplying other search terms.

You can specify entries with ('Yes') or without ('No') photographs.

You can specify a church or chapel's Dedication, to restrict entries to
those containing the term you supply as a dedication. So for instance, 'John'
would return 'St John', 'St Mary and St John', 'St John the Divine' &c.

You can specify a Street address, and likewise 'George' will return
George Place, St George's Street, George and Dragon, &c.

You can restrict the search to classes of Denomination. The exact denomination
is always shown in the results, although the search is for broad types. So you
can search for 'Methodist', but not 'Wesleyan Methodist' or 'Primitive Methodist'.
'Multi-denominational' includes Ecumenical Partnerships, and
'Other' means anything not covered by other broad classes.

Please note the above provides a search of selected fields in
the Gloucestershire section of the Places of Worship
Database on this site (churchdb.gukutils.org.uk) only.
For other counties, or for a full search of the Database, you might
like to try the site's
Google Custom Search, which includes full webpage content.

Further Information

This site provides historical information about churches, other places
of worship and cemeteries. It has no affiliation with the churches or
congregations themselves, nor is it intended to provide a means to find
places of worship in the present day.

For current information you should contact the place of worship directly via their website.